The 'Grandpa School' $120,000.00 field trip

While the boys have been on their school holiday, I have been holding a 'Grandpa School' most weekdays. Classes last for about 15 minutes each day. There are no tests. I try to come up with topics that the boys should know about but will also be interesting. I think they should know as much about America and it's place in the world, both geographically, politically, scientifically as possible. Our topics have ranged from the space program, to glass making, tree rings, the Inuit People, and Einstein. 

This post is about a 'field trip' we took to the New Zealand Mint. You'll recall that Jeanne and I went in to it on my birthday last year and did a post on it. Since then, Amiri has expressed interest in seeing a kilogram of gold several times and we've been promising to go back and give him that opportunity. As it turned out, the City of Auckland happened to be sponsoring a 'summer of fun' week at Aotea Square when we went so we took advantage of the fun after we visited the Mint. 

Here then are the pictures I took of our field trip. Our experience at the mint was very rewarding. Amiri even asked the bullion trader, Mr. Sampson Heng, how many coins the Mint minted per hour, and then multiplied in his head and told Mr. Heng how many coins that made per day. Mr. Heng seemed to enjoy talking with the boys and brought out not one, but two different forms of gold that they produce in the kilogram size..A coin with a kangaroo on the front, and an ingot.  Amiri can't wait to show his class, when school starts in February, the photos of him holding $120,000.00 of gold. I wonder if the Mint will soon experience a run of students from Summerland Primary asking to see the gold. 

Our experience will also allow me to talk at 'school' today about investing in different ways. 

(I don't think that investing in silver is a very good strategy for them. The very small amount of NZ silver we have has mainly souvenir value.)

On our way on the train.

As we rode up the escalators from the lowest level of Britomart, where the trains arrive, the smell of Subway sandwiches caught our attention. Our first order of business was to fuel these two up before the tramp along Queen Street to the Mint. I imagine that it was about 1 kilometer. Their favorite, and in fact the only Subway I haver seen them eat, is a tuna salad. 

Here we are at the vault-like entrance to the building.

THERE IT IS.   A KILOGRAM or 2.2 pounds of solid gold or about $60,000.00 in NZ currency. 

And another kilo in ingot form. Notice the elevator doors in the background. I like a place that has fun attitude about who they are and what they do. 

Gold is heavy. 

Here we are back at Aotea Square. The blue things are large dense foam blocks that the kids could assemble into all sorts of things. 

The City really did it up right. First, they rolled out artificial grass over a large section of the square, erected a huge canopy, and filled it with chairs. As you can see, some people found them comfortable enough to snooze in. We stayed awake and had gelato.  

Here is what Amiri and Arram designed and built . They don't have the ramp at the far end assembled yet. When they left it, four other kids were waiting to step in and continue to refine it.

Auckland Museum sent over Basil, the dinosaur.

Amiri quickly spotted the legs the belonged to the guy who powers Basil. 

There was music. The two performers in this picture are doing David Bowie's Space Oddity. It was interesting to hear the crowd's reaction when they announced their tribute to Bowie. As everywhere in the world I'm sure, his music is much appreciated here. These two young girls got a huge round of applause just by announcing the song. It's a shame that he's gone.  It was also a bit of a shock to me to realize that this song was a single of his back in 1969. (also a longer version on an album) Where has all the time gone?

We take a break at a sushi place on the way back to the train. Do you notice anything odd about this photo? Is Arram really standing at such an angle? Is gravity that weird in NZ? Some of you know that Arram has been studying magic over this holiday. Has he really acquired special powers?

No, we are on a fairly steep hill at this point on Queen Street and I staightened the sidewalk to the horizontal, allowing Arram to lean rather dramatically. 

Grandpa school concluded today, 2-1-16, with a lesson on geography. We used Google maps to take us all over the globe. Lately, the boys have asked questions about Canada, Singapore, and Peru, so we visited them all. Then, we looked at proof that Wellington is indeed the southernmost national capital in the world. I think that they enjoyed learning a little bit over their holiday. It was painless. I certainly enjoyed teaching them. 

Although Grandpa School had no tests, I did ask them to write a story about some part of our trip to Wellington. Both boys did a good job on their essays. Amiri used Minecraft to tell a story about the giant squid they saw at Te Papa and Arram wrote about our hotel.  

These two young men are unique and wonderful people. What a pleasure it is to be their grandpa.                                           -djf

Our last day. A walk to Oriental Beach. Then, to a one-of-a-kind airport and home.

Update:  I just read that a 4.1 earthquake hit Wellington this afternoon (1-29-16) I have not heard about much damage. This is especially interesting because as part of our guided tour of the Beehive and Parliament Buildings, we were shown the earthquake protection devices in the basements of those buildings. They are also present below Te Papa.  

And there was an earthquake in Christchurch just recently. Wonder if we'll get one?  

Today is our last day in Wellington. We all feel a bit of regret. We have had a wonderful time here and Wellington is such a nice city. We felt at home immediately and now feel a bit sad to be leaving our new friend.  

The hotel is letting us check out late but we are all packed and ready to go to the airport around 1 p.m. There is plenty of time this morning for more exploration. 

We are headed to Oriental Beach. As usual, we'd love it if you came along to see the sights...

That Police boat does look like it means business, but don't you think it ought to be facing out for faster reaction time? 

Tourists are paddling their waka around the harbour.

Our view of more marina as we round the shore.  The beach is located directly below the church you see on the hill. 

It's a small beach but kid friendly. No surf at all.  

I'm showing you this view simply because I like how the church looks up there. 

A view of the other end of Oriental Beach and part of the city.

Amiri, always the climber, made it quickly to the top of this rope pyramid, next to the beach.

This retired tugboat near the beach is a restaurant believe it or not. It's not very glamorous from the outside, but they must think highly of their bill of fare, because it's quite pricey. We didn't get a change to eat there. We had a schedule to keep and wanted to try a special item elsewhere.

We head back along the wharf. We intend to go to a little hole in the wall Bahn Mi Korean sandwich place Allie scoped out.

On our way, Jeanne realized that a hill top, across the bay, was the scene of a very special moonrise that astro-photographer Mark Gee recorded back in Feb. of 2013. I wasn't able to zoom in enough to approximate his close-up view of the hill and the people, but I am close enough to give you a good idea of it. 

Here is his video:

This little sandwhich shop is on another narrow alley. Banh mi means bread I guess in Korean, but here it means a really good sandwich. 

This little shop which isn't even visible from the street does an enormous business during lunch hours. Look at the stacks ready for the rush that is to come soon. We were on the leading edge of the lunch wave and so didn't have to wait to get our baguette style treat. 

This shot was taken from the bench where we ate our sandwiches. The boys had sushi and meat pies instead of the sandwiches. This little square is popular as you can see with the business people who work in the surrounding buildings. We even had a keyboard player to entertain us. 

This is Latin for "Time Flies."

This clock is on the original Parliament building that we passed just after seeing the Beehive. The motto reminded lawmakers back then to 'get the job done,' and it reminded us now that we needed to catch our shuttle to the airport. 

Since so much of the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings Trilogy was filmed in New Zealand, it is little wonder that some of the characters from Middle Earth are still hanging around. When we got to the air port, we discovered that it had some surprises for us....

While Allie got our tickets out of the self-serve kiosk, the boys and I met Smaug.

As we walked past the shops that line the terminal, we spotted these trolls.

High above us, Gollum dives into the water to catch a nice, tassty fish.

And Gandalf arrives just in time on an Eagle.

Here we are waiting in the  Koru lounge. Very comfortable  

 And naturally, the airport is on the beach too. This is the view out of the Koru lounge window. 

 Buckled up and ready for home. It took the Iron Ram 13 hours to get us to Wellington, but we'll be back in Auckland in only an hour this way.

You know how interminable it seems for the line in front of you to move when you are waiting to leave the plane? Well, they did something on this flight that I haven't seen done before. They let the last twenty rows leave the plane from the tail door. 

I was rather disappointed though that we didn't get to jump out and slide down a big yellow inflated slide. 

What a terrific holiday we had. Allie planned all of this out and it all worked perfectly. We discovered that we love Wellington and actually miss it a bit. 

It is easy to get around it on foot. There are cafes and restaurants everywhere, so we never had to look very hard when we needed to refuel or rest. 

I took some pictures of orchids in the Begonia House at the rose garden that I will probably make a post of sometime when I need one. 

I'm sorry that our holiday Wellington is over and I'm sorry that my posts are done. I've had a ball reliving our adventure and sharing it with you. We'll keep having adventures though, even if they are of a more mundane variety. Keep visiting with us.        -djf

A playground, a tree house and a rose garden in the hills. Then a return to the summit via Middle Earth.

We're continuing in this post with our adventure in Wellington.  At the end of our last very exciting episode, we were just approaching the playground down the hill from the top of the cable car track.

Today's adventure starts with Amiri preparing to take a flying leap into the air...

I like this picture. It hints at the second picture. Here, Amiri is watching another kid ride the 'flying fox.' It is perfectly safe of course, as long  as you hold on,  but I like the little girl's reaction who is next in line to ride it. She looks as if she is considering whether she really wants to. Amiri's reaction is completely different. His look says, "Okay, that's how it is, cool." 

Here, Amiri is a split second away from hitting the tires that stop the wheels he's riding and cause him to rock forward and then reverse direction. He's excited. Unfortunately, Allie is missing this particular ride. Hard to keep you eyes on two boys at once who are going in opposite directions.

We have left the playground and are heading for the tree house. The lighting is odd at this time of the day. It's overcast but bright and so muggy that there is almost a mist in the air. Some of these flowers seem to glow.

Here we are at the treehouse. 

The Bee Lady welcomes guests.

The mistiness is making everthing look indistinct. Almost out of focus. 

Beautiful, a hint of sun has brightened things. but I wish it was clearer.

We have left the tree house above and behind us. Boys and water are a natural combination. Fortunately, this was the only sprinkler we found all afternoon. 

Down, down, down we go. The problem is that we have to climb back up to the top of the hill  to ride the cable car back down again. 

Lots of people from all over the world are wandering slowly through the gardens. Eveywhere you go the smell of the flowers causes you to inhale a little more deeply than your otherwise would. Always a new flavor on the wind. 

We had a choice here. Do we go to the left and take the unimaginative, and flat, route to the rose garden, or do we take the scenic route? Right, up the stairs it is.

And since we took the stairs and the scenic route, we climbed to high above the rose
garden. Now to climb down  yet again. 

About half way down we see some interesting wire trees.

Ah, we made it. I have found a comfortable bench nearly in the center of the garden and the rest of the crew can circle me to their heart's content.
From here, we went inside the greenhouse (glasshouse here) and saw some amazing orchids.  I'll show you those another time.  I also had the strongest cup of coffee at the Begonia House Cafe that I have ever had, in my entire life. It shocked my mouth it was so strong. Had I known how strong it was going to taste, I might have watered it down a little with some 100 proof whiskey. 

Allie is starting the climb back up to the cable car, about 1/2 mile away. The route we followed was used in the Hobbit movie as a filming location. Frodo and his Hobbit friends take shelter from the Nazgul (Ringwaithes) along this stretch of forest.

Not Frodo and company, but Arram and Amiri are walking the same path that the Hobbits did, sort of. Pretty cool if you are a fan of the books. (the movies were okay, but could not possibly match the books.)

No sign of the black horsemen today.

We did make it back up to the top, avoiding both the Nazgul and exhaustion after our day of ups and downs, and ups and downs. We rode back down the cable car and although it was getting later in the afternoon, noticed that there were still big crowds waiting for their ride to the top. We met a very tall and and elegant lady on our way back to our hotel.

I wonder if she knows the guy with the dog that we met earlier? He'd be way too short for her though. 

There it is at last. We really did have a long day and we're all happy to be home again. And what did I say about the crazy weather? The skies are blue once again. 

And what does one do after a long day of hiking and climbing and riding flying foxes? One word (okay, two words...) 

HOT TUB                     -djf